Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane:  I often hear from people who are nearly desperate to reconcile their marriage.  Some don’t yet have their spouse’s full cooperation, commitment, or support.  Many believe that if they can just get their spouse on board, then everything else should fall into place.  This isn’t always the case.  Sometimes, both people can want to work things out more than anything, but they still run into the common problems or pitfalls that occur somewhere along the way.  In the following article, I’ll tell you the common problems that I see crop up over and over again for couples who are trying to reconcile their marriage in the hopes that this will help you to avoid and address them.

One Or Both Spouses Expect Too Much Too Soon: This is probably the most common problem that I see.  People sometimes expect or hope that reconciling means completely working things out or completely fixing their marriage seemingly overnight.  Just wanting to work things out doesn’t always mean that your wishes immediately turn into reality.  It usually takes a real effort combined with time, skill, a very solid plan, and a little luck.  And unfortunately, sometimes when people don’t see real and immediate progress, they throw up their hands with phrases like “this just isn’t going to work” when in reality they never gave it a fair chance in the first place. Another issue that comes up time and time again is that it’s very common to have one enthusiastic spouse and one reluctant one.  What I mean by this is that usually one person wants the reconciliation a good deal more than the other or one spouse has their doubts if working things out is even possible.  Often, the enthusiastic spouse will pressure the other or become disappointed when they don’t see the enthusiasm or the commitment that they were hoping for. It’s important to understand that this is a process.  You probably won’t be on the same page or feel the same things the entire time and this can be worked through as long as you keep trying and don’t give up.

One Or Both People Believe That In Order To Truly Reconcile, They Must Completely Eliminate Or Agree On Every Problem Or Issue In Their Marriage: Sometimes, people go into the reconciliation process believing that when they come out of it, all of their problems should be solved.  They expect that the issues that brought them there in the first place should be completely shored up and removed so that they never come up again.  This isn’t always realistic.  And sometimes when the issues or problems reoccur, one or both people will think that the process didn’t “really work” or that their marriage is doomed to finally fail. What people sometimes don’t understand is that reconciling or saving your marriage doesn’t mean that your issues will suddenly disappear.  People don’t just change their mind, their stance, or the core of who they are because their spouse wants them to.

But, if you are able to work things out successfully, then you learn to deal with your issues in a different way.  The issues may well still be there from time to time, but when they are, they no longer shake your marriage to its core because you’ve learned new and better ways of dealing with them and each other. You might agree to disagree about certain things in your marriage and actually be able to negotiate successfully this time. Or, you may just decide to prioritize which issues you can and cannot tolerate because your marriage and your spouse are that important to you.  But, neither of these things mean that the issues will just go away.  Hopefully, though, you’ve been able to make so much progress during the reconciliation process, this shouldn’t matter as much as you might suspect.

Many Couples Don’t Understand That The Reconciliation Process Is An Ongoing One That Sometimes Needs To Be Revisited, Or Tweaked: Some people see reconciling their marriage as a one time deal.  This can especially be true of the reluctant spouse.  They can believe that once this whole process is over, they are free to not have to revisit it again.  The thing is, it’s perfectly normal (and understandable) to revert back to old behaviors, habits, and beliefs sometimes.  That’s why it’s important to understand that this really is an ongoing process.

Sure, you should have to address your marital issues much less as time goes on and as you work through them and strengthen your marriage, but it’s unrealistic to think that you can just go back to your old way of doing things without any consequence.  It’s often necessary to continue to “check in” on your marriage and with your spouse and it’s a safe bet that you will need to continue to prioritize and make time for your spouse and your marriage.  This may seem like common sense, but I can’t tell you how many couples revert back to habit once they believe that the crisis is over.  And what happens?  They end right back up to where they started – with a marriage that is once again challenged, but now with patience wearing thin and frustrations running high.

The thing is, every time you have to revisit your marriage, try to save or reconcile it, or decide whether to walk away from it, the process becomes more and more difficult because each spouse begins to have more and more doubt and people begin to have thoughts like “here we go again.  Should this really be so difficult if we truly love each other are meant to be together?” It is so much easier to reconcile once, put everything you have into it and then continue to monitor and tweak it as needed than to have to start over each time it goes off the rails.

It is always possible to reconcile your marriage and to make it better than it ever was before.  But it’s not a one time deal and it often requires a bit more commitment, cooperation, and skill than people originally believed. My first attempts at reconciling my marriage failed miserably.  My husband wasn’t sure if he wanted to save our marriage and I pushed him too far too fast.  Things got so bad that we almost divorced.  Eventually, I learned to view this as an ongoing process and to approach it from another angle and this eventually worked well for us.  If it helps, you can read more about how I did this on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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